Good brand of C.D. Blanks

John Hawkins · Post by **John Hawkins** » 23 Sep 2002 9:22 am

Any suggestions on the brand of blank C.D.'S
that are of real good quality and will last like the commercial ones do ?

Also who might carry the brand !

Many Thanks

John

Brad Sarno · Post by **Brad Sarno** » 23 Sep 2002 10:01 am

John, I'm an audio mastering engineer and at my job I have to make some very reliable masters for pro duplication. We've found the very best disks to be those made by Taiyo Yuden. Sometimes other people will put their name on the Taiyo Yudens, like Sony, Microboards, and others. They're about 15 cents more expensive than some others but very worth it. If you search for blanks on the internet look for Taiyo Yuden. Dont listen to what some people say, blank media makes a huge difference.

Brad Sarno

Glenn Austin · Post by **Glenn Austin** » 23 Sep 2002 10:20 am

Brad, What is your take on cd burning speed
1x 2x 4x 16x . and, what do you think of the new black Cdr's from a company called Princo. Just curious to hear your recommendations.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 23 Sep 2002 10:34 am

I've been told that copying music to CD, burn at 2X max. When the mastering house that I use burns the Master, it's at 1x.

Glenn Austin · Post by **Glenn Austin** » 23 Sep 2002 10:51 am

I've been told that 4x is the best. With 1x and 2x speeds, the laser remains in the same place too long, causing errors. Who knows!!

John Hawkins · Post by **John Hawkins** » 23 Sep 2002 3:36 pm

Many thanks Brad ! I have heard about that brand and I am glad you confirmed what I was told .

Chas and Glenn , thanks for your response as well . I also have heard that 4 is the best so thanks to you both for the info .

All the best to each of you .

John

[This message was edited by John Hawkins on 23 September 2002 at 10:41 PM.]

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 23 Sep 2002 7:42 pm

Well that's interesting, and it coincides with my getting a new firewire cd burner that I plugged in today and was going to burn a 2x and it doesn't go that slow. Slowest it goes is 4x which would corroborate what Glenn said. I have a DAW, that I've had for 8 years and was very, very expensive in 1994. It's SCSI and when it burns a CD, it calibrates the laser in the burner before writing.

As an aside, I was reading an article a few years ago that was talking about cds and how they weren't really digital since digital is streams of 1s and 0s and on cds there's only 1s and blank space, so their argument was that cds were really an analog medium.

Glenn Austin · Post by **Glenn Austin** » 24 Sep 2002 9:56 am

While 4x might be the best, I don't really know. I've done some tests where I burnt some discs at different speeds and then imported the audio back into Protools. To my ears none of it sounded as good as the original. Having said that, most of the time I burn at 16x, because my clients usually have their coats on by this time, and are standing at the door , looking at their watch every 5 seconds!

Interestingly, if you put analog tape under a microscope, it is digital in nature. Each particle on the tape can only be magnetised in one direction, North or South. Sort of a digital with a huge sample rate and bit depth.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 25 Sep 2002 12:03 am

I love it, whatever I think it is, it isn't.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 26 Sep 2002 3:51 pm

Glenn, while it's true that the iron particles are either magnetized, or not magnetized, you are neglecting to consider the strength of that magnetization in your analogy.

Analog tape has the characteristic of varying amplitude, which digital media does not. Digital "streams" of data are either on or off, whereas analog "streams" of data are on, off, and everywhere in between.